Lessons #419 and 420

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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +

+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +

+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +

+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +

+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +

+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +

+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +

+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +

+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +

+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +

+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +

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Spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12:7-11)

… ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹ All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

The message of 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 that we are considering is that There are several spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit gave for the benefit of the church. We have thus far considered four spiritual gifts. The first two spiritual gifts related to messages or utterances are in the form of gifts of messages of wisdom and knowledge. The third is the gift of faith that we described as that special ability to exercise trust or confidence in the Lord that only a few believers possess as a gift from God. It is really the faith that “moves mountain” so to say. The fourth is described as “gifts of healing” We deduced that the apostle used the plural “gifts of healing” to convey the diverse nature of healing and diverse form of illnesses that those with the gift of healing would be involved with. We proceed to the fifth spiritual gift.

The fifth spiritual gift is related to performing miracles that is described in the phrase of 1 Corinthians 12:10 to another miraculous powers. The phrase to another is a reminder that not every believer has this gift but only those the Holy Spirit determines to bestow it. Of course, the phrase does not imply that a person could not have another spiritual gift besides this one. In effect, we are saying that the phrase does not mean that a believer would only have one spiritual gift but that it indicates that not every believer would have the fifth spiritual gift mentioned.

The phrase miraculous powers is literally from the Greek workings of power. This is because of the Greek words used. The adjective “miraculous” in the NIV is translated from a Greek noun (energēma) that appears only twice in the Greek NT; in its other usage in 1 Corinthians 12:6 it means “activity as expression of capability” but in our present verse it refers to an activity that involves special empowerment by the Holy Spirit. Thus, to qualify the activity involved in the fifth spiritual gift the apostle used a Greek word (dynamis) translated “powers” in the NIV. It is from this Greek word that our English word “dynamite” is derived; it basically means power. The word may refer to special enablement or strength that the Lord Jesus promised the disciples would receive to help them be His witnesses as we read in Acts 1:8:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The word can refer to the power that works wonders as the power associated with Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry on earth, as the Apostle Peter stated in Acts 10:38:

how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

Power may be understood in a general way of the potential for functioning in some way. It is in this way that the word is used in Romans 1:16:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

When the Greek word is used in the plural the word predominantly means “miracles” as that done by God through Apostle Paul as stated in Acts 19:11:

God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,

In our passage of 1 Corinthians 12:10 where the Greek uses the plural, it is used in the sense of “power that works wonders” or “miracle,” that is, a special manifestation of great power. Hence, the fifth spiritual gift is associated with performing miracles. So, the literal Greek reading workings of power refers to activities characterized by miracles hence the translation of the NIV of miraculous powers.

The fifth spiritual gift as we have indicated is concerned with miracles. Therefore, it is important for us to state clearly that all miracles are ultimately from God although He uses either human agents or supernatural beings to carry them out. There is no doubt that miracles are from God. The Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul states so in Galatians 3:5:

Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

The same truth is implied through the human author of Hebrews as we read in Hebrews 2:4:

God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

We assert the truth that all miracles are from God because most teachers and preachers of the word of God imply otherwise. In other words, they are those who imply that Satan is also an ultimate source of miracles and so they think of what is described as “counterfeit miracles.” This is probably in part because some of our English versions such as the 1984 edition of the NIV, but not the 2011 edition and the NJB, use such phrase in 2 Thessalonians 2:9:

The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders,

I suppose that the adjective “counterfeit” used in this passage may not be wrong if the adjective is understood with the meaning of “made in exact imitation of something valuable with the intention to deceive or defraud.” Anyway, the word “counterfeit” in 2 Thessalonians 2:9 is translated from a Greek word (pseudos) that in this passage has the sense of “lie,” that is, a statement that deviates from or perverts the truth. Every miracle is real, but the problem is with the purpose of the miracle. God gives miracles either to authenticate His message through His messenger or to a false agent intended to deceive others or to produce a stubborn response to God’s word. That God authenticates His message through miracles is indicated in declaration concerning the ministry of Apostles Paul and Barnabas as reported in Acts 14:3:

So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.

That God grants miracles to false agents to bring about deception on people or for creation of stubbornness on part of a person(s) is clear from the Scripture. In the OT times we read of the Egyptian magicians duplicating the miracles of Moses and Aaron as stated in Exodus 7:11–13

¹¹ Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: ¹² Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. ¹³ Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.

The duplication of the miracles through Moses and Aaron by the Egyptian wise men and sorcerers was intended to render Pharaoh stubborn but that does not mean that the miracle was false. The beast in Revelation is described as doing miracles that are intended to deceive according to Revelation 13:13:

And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men.

Likewise, miracles would be performed by demons in the future or even at the present to deceive people as we read in Revelation 19:20:

But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

The point is that we should not say that a miracle is not real because of the agent involved but that the miracle is from God through a false agent to bring about God’s purpose as the agents serve to deceive others. God can and does grant miracles through false agents to test whether His people would remain faithful to Him and His word and not be swayed by false agents who perform miracles, but his message is false as we read in Deuteronomy 13:1–3:

¹If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, ² and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” ³ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.

That aside, I am saying that a verified miracle should not ultimately be attributed to a false agent or Satan but to God because the Scripture is clear that everything considered miraculous is from the Sovereign God as the psalmist attested in Psalm 136:4:

to him who alone does great wonders, His love endures forever.

The clause to him who alone does great wonders means that only Yahweh, the God of Israel, and no one else performs miracles or wonders. This being the case, it is inconceivable that Satan is the ultimate source of any miracle. With this assertion that miracles are from God, let me return to our exposition of the fifth spiritual gift that concerns performing of miracles.

It is interesting to note that the gift of miracles follows the gifts of healing. This would suggest that there is a distinction between the two in some way. The problem of the distinction between the two gifts is complicated because healing is in and of itself a miracle. We can prove this assertion by several references to the Scripture. Mark’s gospel records certainly indicate that healing is a miracle as we may gather from Mark 6:5:

He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

The clause except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them should be understood to mean that Jesus did a few miracles as confirmed by Matthew’s statement regarding the same event in Jesus’ hometown as we read in Matthew 13:58:

And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

The gospel of John records a statement of Jesus Christ that indicates that healing is a miracle as we read in John 7:21

Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all astonished.

By the way, the word “miracle” in this verse is translated from a Greek word (ergon) that basically means “work” so that the phrase one miracle is literally one work. That aside, the Lord Jesus stated the Jews were astonished by one miracle. This one miracle probably refers to the healing of the invalid recorded in John 5:5–9:

⁵ One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” ⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” ⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath.

The book of Acts records at least two instances where healing was described as “miracle.” When Peter and John appeared before the high priest and other officials, the healing performed through Peter was described as a miracle in Acts 4:16:

“What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it.

The phrase an outstanding miracle refers to the healing of the crippled, stated in Acts 3:5–9:

⁵ So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. ⁶ Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” ⁷ Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. ⁸ He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. ⁹ When all the people saw him walking and praising God,

The healings the Lord accomplished through Apostle Paul were described as miracles according to Acts 19:11–12:

¹¹ God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, ¹² so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.

The examples we have cited clearly indicate that healing in and of itself is a miracle. However, the gift of miracles is described as distinct from the gift of healing. This raises the question of how to understand what is meant by the gift of miracles. To help us in understanding what is involved in the gift of miracle that distinguishes it from the gift of healing, we need to consider the concept of miracle as we find in the OT Scripture since that concept is first used in OT Scripture.

The word “miracle” is used to describe the plague judgments God brought on the Egyptians in preparation for the liberation of Israel from slavery as we read in Psalm 106:7:

When our fathers were in Egypt, they gave no thought to your miracles; they did not remember your many kindnesses, and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea.

The phrase your miracles is literally your wonderful works where the Hebrew used a participle from a Hebrew verb (pālāʾ) with a root meaning that primarily signifies something that, measured by the standards of what people are accustomed to or what they normally expect, appears to be extraordinary and wonderful. The response or reaction to events or objects described with the word is that of astonishment and praise from the beholders. In this passage of Psalm 106:7, the sense of the word is wonder/miracle, that is, a marvelous event manifesting a supernatural act of a divine agent; often deviating from the normal course (or laws) of nature. The noun form of the Hebrew verb is used in Psalm 77:14:

You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.

The word “miracle” is translated from a Hebrew word (pělěʾ) that may mean “wonder, miracle, marvelous thing, i.e., an astounding thing which causes a feeling or attitude of intense amazement.” The word “miracle” is used to describe the turning into snake the staff of Aaron as we may gather from Exodus 7:9:

“When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”

The word “miracle” is translated from a Hebrew word (môp̄ēṯ) that may mean “miracle/sign,” that is, a marvelous event manifesting a supernatural act of a divine agent; often with an emphasis on communicating a message. These passages we have cited indicate that miracle is concerned with what is unusual or supernatural. However, an event described as miraculous may involve God’s act of judgment. This helps us in understanding the gift of miracles.

The gift of miracles should be understood as a more comprehensive gift of the Holy Spirit than the gifts of healing in that it involves a more diverse display of God’s power. In effect, while the gift of miracles includes healing, it encompasses other display of God’s power that may benefit or even harm an individual in the sense of producing judgment on a person. There are at least two miracles mentioned in the NT other than healing in the sense of curing sickness that benefited others. Exorcism is a miracle that is part of the gift of miracle. We know that exorcism is a miracle because of the Lord’s response to His disciples that were trying to keep someone from it as we read in Mark 9:38–39:

³⁸ “Teacher,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” ³⁹ “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me,

Apostle Paul certainly exercised the gift of miracle when he carried out exorcism on the slave girl in Philippi that eventually landed him, and Silas in jail because of agitation spearheaded by the master of the slave girl who saw that the means of livelihood was lost because Apostle Paul perform exorcism on the slave girl. I am referring to the record in Acts 16:16–23:

¹⁶ Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” ¹⁸ She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her. ¹⁹ When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. ²⁰ They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar ²¹ by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” ²² The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. ²³ After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.

Another miracle that benefited others that is part of the demonstration of the gift of miracles is raising someone from the dead. Apostle Peter exercised this gift when he raised Dorcas from the dead as we read from Acts 9:36–41:

³⁶ In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which, when translated, is Dorcas), who was always doing good and helping the poor. ³⁷ About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. ³⁸ Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!”

³⁹ Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them. ⁴⁰ Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. ⁴¹ He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called the believers and the widows and presented her to them alive.

Apostle Paul also exercised the gift of miracle when he raised Eutychus from the dead as we read in Acts 20:8–10:

⁸ There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting. ⁹ Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead. ¹⁰ Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s alive!”

We have cited two examples of gift of miracles that benefited others but there is at least one display of gift of miracle that harmed an individual. This was the case when Apostle Paul pronounced judgment on Elymas who was attempting to disrupt the presentation of the gospel to the Proconsul Sergius Paulus as we read in Acts 13:6–12:

⁶ They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, ⁷ who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. ⁸ But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. ⁹ Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, ¹⁰ “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? ¹¹ Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind, and for a time you will be unable to see the light of the sun.” Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. ¹² When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.

Elymas became blind as Apostle Paul pronounced judgment on him. His being blinded is certainly a miracle that brought judgment upon him. This kind of miracle is indeed one that is associated with the gift of miracles. The miracle, being a judgment on Elymas, is similar to the plague judgments God brought on the Egyptians. So, we contend that the apostle exercised the gift of miracle with negative impact on Elymas.

In any case, the illustrations we have given support our statement based on the evidence in the Scripture that gift of miracles is comprehensive gift that involves a more diverse display of God’s power so that while it includes healing, it encompasses other display of God’s power that may benefit or even harm an individual in the sense of producing judgment on a person. The idea of diverse display of God’s power is implied by the use of the plural “miracles” in stating the gift. Anyhow, this understanding of the gift of miracles enables us to deal with the question of whether the gift is still in existence in the church of Christ at the present time or whether it ended with the early church.

The question of the existence of the gift of miracles in the church concerns the debate on the cessation of certain spiritual gifts. We have dealt with this subject in detail in our study of the book of Hebrews. If you were not here when we studied the epistle, or you may have forgotten what we studied about the matter of cessation of spiritual gifts, I suggest you should go to the church website and begin with lesson 5 in that study. However, for our purpose I will give a quick review of the subject as it relates to miracles.

The arguments used by most evangelicals that take the view that any gift of miracles has ceased are primarily due to the work of B. B. Warfield given in his book Counterfeit Miracles. He states that miraculous spiritual gifts were given by God transferred from the earthly ministry of Christ to be “distinctively the authentication of the Apostles. They were part of the credentials of the Apostles as the authoritative agents of God in founding the church.” ¹ The ability to bestow Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands as recorded in the scripture he states is given “to teach us the course of the gifts of power, in the Apostles, apart from whom they were not conferred: as also their function to authenticate the Apostles as the authoritative founders of the church.” ² Warfield admits that miracles in a limited number continued into the second century but come from few apostolically trained men endowed with the Spirit such as Polycarp the disciple of John, Ignatius, and a few others.

The work of Warfield implies that there is only one purpose for miracles. However, there are several purposes of miracles that can be derived from Scripture since there is no direct assertion that states specifically the purpose of miracle. First, contrary to the assertion of Warfield and those who advance his argument, miracles in the NT serve the purpose of authenticating the gospel message and not individual human beings. Even in the case of Jesus, the Holy Spirit tells us through Apostle Peter that His miracles were used to prove that He is the Messiah or to authenticate His divine mission, as we read in Acts 2:22:

"Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.

Perhaps, it could be deduced from this passage that miracles served to authenticate the appointment of Apostles as representative of Jesus Christ. But that will be purely a deduction that is countered by the fact that others who were not Apostles, such as Philip and Stephen, performed miracles. The point is there is no direct assertion in the Scripture that says that miracles authenticate the apostles if the so-called “signs of the apostles” in 2 Corinthians 12:12 are properly interpreted. However, there is a direct assertion in the Scripture that says that miracles served the purpose of attesting to the gospel in Hebrews 2:4:

God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

The pronoun “it” refers to the preaching of the gospel. So, it is to the preaching of the gospel that signs and various miracles testify. That miracles served to draw attention to the gospel message is evident in the Scripture. When the evangelist Philip performed miracles in Samaria, the miracles helped to focus people’s attention to his message according to Acts 8:6-8:

⁶ When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. ⁷ With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. ⁸ So there was great joy in that city.

Peter went to Lydda to preach and there he healed a paralytic, Aeneas, the result of the miraculous healing was people believing the gospel as to be saved as in the passage we cited previously, that is, Acts 9:34-35:

³⁴ "Aeneas," Peter said to him, "Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and take care of your mat." Immediately Aeneas got up. ³⁵ All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.

Later, Peter went to Joppa where Dorcas or Tabitha was raised from the dead. The result of that miracle was that some people believed in Christ, as we read in Acts 9:40-42:

⁴⁰ Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, "Tabitha, get up." She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. ⁴¹ He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called the believers and the widows and presented her to them alive. ⁴² This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.

When Paul and Barnabas were on their first missionary trip, we are told that miracles were used to confirm their message in a passage we cited previously, that is, Acts 14:3:

So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.

This passage is clear that it is the gospel message that the Lord proved to be true through miracles. There was no authentication of the Apostle Paul or Barnabas. The miraculous signs were for authenticating their message. Second, miracles especially in the NT times served to bring glory to God. Several times in the gospel we are told that when Jesus performed miracles people praised or glorified God. Take for example; when Jesus healed a blind man in the vicinity of Jericho, the response of the people was praising God, as we read in Luke 18:42-43:

⁴² Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed you." ⁴³ Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.

Third, miracles, during Jesus’ earthly ministry, served to indicate that the kingdom of God has come. On one occasion, Jesus after casting out demons argued that His miracle of casting out demons signified the coming of the kingdom of God, as we read in Luke 11:20:

But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you.

It is therefore not surprising that Jesus linked the preaching of the kingdom of God with healing miracles as He sent out His disciples to preach during His earthly ministry, as in Luke 9:1-2:

¹ When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, ² and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

Fourth, miracles recorded in the NT served the purpose of meeting needs of people. While it is not the primary purpose of miracles of Jesus but all the miracles He performed, no doubt, met the needs of those who were the recipients of His miracles. Jesus before He healed the blind man near Jericho had asked the man of what he wanted from Him in Luke 18:41:

"What do you want me to do for you?" "Lord, I want to see," he replied.

When Jesus fed about five thousand men with fives loaves of bread and two fish, there is no doubt that He met the need of hunger that He perceived among them; for He had instructed His disciples to feed them rather than sending them away hungry or to fend for themselves as the disciples suggested, as we read in Luke 9:12-13:

¹² Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, "Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here." ¹³ He replied, "You give them something to eat." They answered, "We have only five loaves of bread and two fish — unless we go and buy food for all this crowd."

The purposes of miracles we have considered make the position advocated by Warfield difficult to sustain since his primary argument is that the primary purpose of the miracles performed by the Apostles is to authenticate their authority which is necessary for the founding the church and writing of the Scripture. There are several problems with this argument. The most important is that there is not one passage of the Scripture that teaches this. At best this could be a deduction following what was said of the purpose of Jesus’ miracles. But there is nothing in the Scripture that supports this argument. Now, we have to understand that it is perfectly valid to derive doctrine from the Scripture through deductions, but such approach becomes invalid if there are passages that will contradict the deduced doctrine as in the case of asserting that miracles authenticated the Apostles. That aside, it is our position that since there is no single passage of the Scripture that states that the gift of miracles has ceased and because Apostle Paul had conveyed to the church in Corinth that they did not lack any spiritual gift that would be in existence until Christ returns (see 1 Corinthians 1:7), the gift of miracles is still for the church of Christ although it might not be commonly evident. God determines how any spiritual gift is manifested so that the fact the gift may not be commonly evident does not mean it does not exist. So, my purpose is to give examples of the kinds of miracles that have been documented outside the pages of the Scripture in modern times that suggests the existence of the gift of miracles. The examples I have selected are those who lived in the time there was much persecution against the Presbyterians in Scotland. The examples that I will cite are reported in the book “The Scots Worthies” by John Howie.

A first example is John Welch of Ayr (1570-1622) that was a Scottish Presbyterian leader. He led a rebellious life, joining a band of thieves, but later got converted. He had an effective ministry of defending the truth of the Scripture against those who ignore and or misapply the Scripture. He seemed to have had the gift of prophecy judging from the fact that there are reported cases of him uttering prophetic words that were fulfilled. For example, he predicted the death of two ministers, Patrick Galloway and John Hall in Edinburgh involved in dispute about church-government that was fulfilled as he predicted. On another occasion, when he was a prisoner at Edinburgh, he predicted the death of a “Popish young man” that mocked him as he presented truth to those who at dinner party with him. No sooner did he finish the prediction the young man died having sunk beneath the dining table. However, the illustration that is my concern is that of raising a young man from the dead. The death was that of a young man towards whom Mr. Welch had great affection. After the death of the young man, the body was taken from the bed and put on the floor to get ready to put his corpse in a coffin. Mr. Welch pleaded to have some time with the body. He lamented for about three hours and after twelve hours the friends of the deceased came back with his coffin, but he refused to let the body be put in the coffin. Even after forty-eight hours, he still refused for the body to be put in the coffin. The people around him sensed that perhaps he did not believe the young man was dead so they called in a physician who confirmed the death of the young man. Even after that, he did not give up. Instead, he cried to the Lord and eventually the Lord brought the young man back to life. This miracle is similar to that of Peter that resulted in Dorcas being brought to life or that of the Apostle Paul with Eutychus. I am hard pressed as to how anyone would deny this miracle as coming from God. I am not sure how we can easily dismiss this recorded miracle of raising someone from the dead. This miracle suggests to me that Mr. Welch had the gift of miracles. This reported event happened in the 1600s and not in the early church. A person would have to explain how such a miracle occurred if the gift of miracles no longer exists.

A second example is Alexander Peden also known as “Prophet Peden” born around 1626, educated at the University of Glasgow and an ordained minister that was one of the leading figures in the Covenanter movement in Scotland. He was also associated with prophetic utterances that were fulfilled. For example, in the year 1684, while in the house of John Slowan, in the parish of Connor, at about ten o'clock where he was discoursing with some men, he got up and warned one of them to flee quickly and hide himself because a colonel was coming to apprehend him within an hour. This happened exactly as he predicted. On another occasion, he predicted to a Mr. Cunning that before the Saturday night he spoke that he would be kept off from his meeting house, that is, prevented from functioning as a pastor of a local congregation and that happened exactly as he said. These notwithstanding, the example I am interested is the pronouncement of death on a man who railed against those who suffered for standing for truth. The man railed against a Mr. Richard Cameron who was put to death because of his stand for the truth. Mr. Cameroun was influenced by Mr. Welch to become an open-air preacher. He was executed in the summer of 1680. As Mr. Hugh railed against such a man, Mr. Peden pronounced a death sentence on him in that he said “Sir, hold your peace; ere twelve o’clock you shall know what a man Richard Cameron was; God shall punish that blasphemous mouth of yours in such a manner, that you shall be set up for a beacon to all such Rabshakehs.” ³ In keeping with the words of Mr. Peden, Mr. Hugh was struck with a sudden sickness and pain though his body, with his mouth wide open, and his tongue hanging out in a fearful manner and before midnight he died. This pronouncement is similar to the punishment Apostle Paul pronounced on Elymas the sorcerer that resulted in his being blind. It is difficult to read this story and not conclude that Mr. Peden had a gift of miracles. I am not sure how a person would reject this story as a mere counterfeit miracle or provide any other explanation to this incident. I could go on an cite other examples of men in this period of history of the church in Scotland that were endued with miraculous power but the two I have cited are sufficient to illustrate that gift of miraculous is still in existence albeit the Holy Spirit controls how it is manifested. However, we cannot deny that such a gift exists in the church today since there is no single passage in the Scripture that supports such a conclusion. Anyway, the fifth gift is that of gift of miracles.

05/27//22